The Internet has facilitated social and commercial interactions of all sorts. While clubs and social venues have served to introduce people to one another for a long time, the Internet opened up new means for communication among strangers as well as among friends, acquaintances and other people who already know one another. Various services exist to help people meet others and form relationships online and offline. These usually offer a menu of detailed profiles for browsing, search functionality, and, sometimes, match-making algorithms that maximize the likelihood of a successful relationship based on estimated compatibility. Most such services are designed for individuals who are looking to find someone they don't already know. A small number of systems provide methods for matching parties who already know each other but due to shyness, fear of rejection, or other constraints, prefer to remain anonymous until they determine the feelings are mutual. These systems allow users to identify others they have interests in and, in cases of matches, disclose the identities to the respective individuals.
One limitation of the prior art is that the existing methods do not prove or substantiate the true nature of the indicated feelings. Thus, if individual X has feelings toward individual Y, but is unable to confirm the true nature of such feelings when revealing them anonymously, Y may not take this indication seriously and may choose not to respond for fear of disclosing their genuine feelings to someone who didn't truly feel the same way about them. Furthermore, knowing that there is no way to validate the responder has genuine feelings, individual X may not send any indications to Y in the first place. Consequently, while existing solutions claim to help people who are hesitant to initiate contact because of shyness, risk of embarrassment, fear of rejection, or other societal constraints, they don't provide a setting which fully overcomes these barriers.
FIG. 1 illustrates a social meeting and communication (e.g., dating) service 10 as it exists in most current services. The service 10 is usually implemented as a web-based site requiring users to sign up for a membership, provide personal profile information and log in to in order to use the service. A database connected to a server holds the information regarding each member of the service. Typically, a member can search for new acquaintances or love interests from the information in the database using filtering criteria (e.g., by gender, age, race, hobby, profession, proximity, and other information). The full personal contact data of the members is not usually revealed to the other members for privacy reasons, but rather, a pseudonym and set of photos and profile data may be made available. Once members are introduced and mutually interested in one another they can of course exchange their full personal information, meet in person, and so on.
Materially for the present purpose, a User X 100 signs in to the service and searches for potential subjects as provided by the service. A set of members (we will refer to them as Users Y1, Y2, Y3, Y4, Y5) 110, 112, 114, 116, 118 matching User X's interests are presented at 130, for example in a browser window. User X can then select one or more matching Users Y which meet more particular criteria from those presented in 130. In the example shown, User X selects a definite interest in Users Y1, Y3 and Y5. This can be done using any traditional computer interface means, such as a radio button or check box. We see that three of the Users Y are selected by User X and their corresponding radio buttons 120 are selected. User X was not particularly interested in User Y2 or User Y4, and their radio buttons 122 are thus not selected.
According to conventional online introduction or dating services, once User X has indicated an interest in one or more Users (Y1, Y3, Y5) a message 140 is sent from User X, through the service, to the selected Users Y. The selected Users Y receive the message indicating that a member of the service (User X) is interested in them. Users Y are then able to review the stored profile information regarding User X. If a User Y is interested in User X and would like to proceed to the next step of communication and introduction, User Y (e.g., Y3, Y5) can send a reply message 142 back to User X, through the service, indicating some mutual interest. The rest is up to the users to continue or not continue to develop their relationship. It is clear in this example that User X can allege an interest in a large number of Users Y, which is not generally checked by the service or by Users Y. Also, multiple reciprocal interests can be alleged leading to disappointment or a loss of credibility in the genuineness of messages 140, 142 regarding interest in a subject. Such services do not provide a test of the real measure of interest among people who have a basis for being interested in one another, previously know each other, nor do they provide a quantitative level of interest by one user in another.
As can be seen, there is a need for a method to help authenticate or substantiate the true nature of indicated feelings of interest. Without it, a user of such systems is left largely in the same position of being reluctant to take the first steps in a relationship. Current services catering to a many-to-many paradigm are not well suited for users who have a genuine and pre-existing interest in another particular user but need help taking steps to show their interest and to gauge the reciprocal interest by the other party as well.